Pregnancy complications

It can create serious complications in pregnancy and adversely affect people with already weakened immune systems. The parasite has also been linked to mood changes in the mental illness schizophrenia.

Ms Ingram told BBC News that the results highlight how current thinking on infectious disease may need to change.

"Typically if you have a bacterial infection, you go to a doctor and take antibiotics and the infection is cleared and you expect all the symptoms to also go away.

"Now we have an example where there is no obvious damage done by the parasite, yet major changes in the neurobiology of the mouse remains after the parasite is gone," she said.

The way forward, she added, would be to look at all the antibodies present in a patient's blood.

"This would show all the parasites and bacteria a person has ever been exposed to and may end up playing a bigger role in explaining illnesses."

Joanne Webster at Imperial College London, who was not involved with the research, said the work was a valuable addition to the scientific literature on this subject.

She said it could have important implications for humans, especially patients with schizophrenia.

"It is very useful to know that these fatal feline attraction behavioural changes do appear to be hard-wired," Prof Webster said.

Poppy Lamberton, also at in Imperial College London, explained that the findings conflicted with hypotheses that certain drugs successfully used to treat schizophrenia, were thought to act in part by reducing T. gondii infection levels.

"If some of the behavioural alterations have already occurred during the early, acute stage of the infection, then the fact that anti-T. gondii drugs may help change these behaviours in chronic infections, leads to many more interesting research questions," she told BBC News.